


That's Just An Alibi

by Duck_Life



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Dancing, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 16:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5973580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey lies about having a date to a party. Jess swoops in to her rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's Just An Alibi

As the dust settles around the galaxy after the destruction of Starkiller Base, the Resistance base on D’Qar continues to buzz with activity. In addition to business as usual, there are parties, pick-up basketball games to unwind, and endless, endless ceremonies.

The first honors the party who dismantled the shields on Starkiller Base— Chewbacca, Finn, Rey, and Han, posthumously. A portrait of him is displayed proudly on the stage, and Leia accepts a medal in his place. Rey stands with her shoulders proud, Poe beaming proudly from the crowd. Finn’s dressed nicely in clothes of his own, clothes that Wedge and Leia had to go out and find for him, dredging up old memories of Luke Skywalker and a golden leather jacket.

Chewie’s just glad to finally get some recognition.

And then comes the ceremony for the X-Wing pilots.

Two nights before the event, Jess slouches in front of a hall mirror, fretting with her hair. “What do you think I should do with it?” she asks Poe, who’s lounging on a nearby chair. “Updo? Down… do?”

“Uh,” he says, and then whips out his tablet, quickly opening up a folder. “Here,” he says, holding it out to her. Onscreen are dozens of pictures of General Organa at various ages, with various hairstyles. “Do one of these.”

“Hmmm, pass,” she says, twisting her hair into a bun. “Ooh, I could do that ridiculous tri-bun thing that Rey has.”

Rey pops her head into the hall. “Are you talking about my hair?”

“Yes,” Jess says, “it’s beautiful and super cool.” Rey sticks out her tongue and lopes into the room to perch on the arm of Poe’s chair. “Real mature.”

“Thank you,” Rey says, understanding but ignoring the sarcasm. “I _am_ really mature.”

“Hey,” Poe says, elbowing her. “Who’re you taking to the after-party?”

Rey blinks. “The what?”

“After the ceremony,” Jess explains, focused on the mirror as she tries out a loose twist at the nape of her neck. “There’s a big dance. Very classy. Very sexy. Better if you have a date.” She turns to face them and show off her hair. “Does this make me look like an elderly lesbian?”

Poe stares at her. “Jess, you _are_ a lesbian.”

“But does it make me look like an _elderly_ lesbian?” she says, raising one eyebrow. “Because I may have a couple years on me but I don’t want to give off the wrong impression.”

“I don’t think it makes you look like an elderly lesbian,” Rey tells her. Jess smiles warmly.

“Thank you,” she says, turning to examine herself in the mirror again. “But then… it doesn’t make me look _too_ young, does it?”

She worries with her hair for at least another hour before all of them head off for bed.

Lying in her quarters, Rey twists her fingers around and around in the sheets and wonders what she’s going to do.

In the morning, she eats breakfast with Finn, trading her portion of oatmeal for his portion of strawberries, like always. “I had another weird dream last night,” Finn tells her, stirring a bunch of raisins into his oatmeal.

“Ooh,” Rey says, leaning in. “What happened?”

Stormtroopers were discouraged from speaking of anything not solid and tangible— daydreams, religion, nightmares. In the past weeks, Finn’s come to love sharing his dreams with Rey. “So, I had an arranged marriage… to this big worm guy. But then everybody got us the same wedding present and we were both really mad.”

As Rey tries breaking down his dream before launching into a completely uncensored account of her own highly erotic one involving a Twi’lek pop star and an abandoned star destroyer, a couple of X-Wing pilots watch them from across the cafeteria.

Later that day, Snap Temmins catches Rey outside the pool. “Hey,” he says, giving her a friendly wave. Everything the man does is friendly. “So, you and the trooper, huh?”

“Wha?” she says, shaking her head to check if she has water in her ears from her swim.

“Finn,” Snap explains. “You and Finn, the two of you. Going to the after-party together?”

Rey blinks, and blinks again. She honestly doesn’t have a response, and her gut reaction is to panic. “N-no, Finn and I aren’t dating,” she says, taken aback. “We aren’t going on a date. We aren’t dating,” she says, which is the truth. “Actually, I’m seeing someone right now,” she says, which isn’t.

“Really?” Snap says, and it hits Rey that she’s just inadvertently told a needless lie to the Resistance’s second most notorious gossip (the first being C-3PO). “Who?”

 _Think fast, dammit_. “J-Jessika,” she says, the first name that comes to mind. “Jessika Pava. I’m— I’m seeing Jessika Pava. Yes I am.” She’s reminded of Finn trying to pass as a member of the Resistance, and winces inwardly.

“You and Jess?” Snap grins. “Well, happy for you!” And he walks off, no doubt to tell his entire squadron the good news.

Rey just knows she needs to get to Jessika first.

She finds her sitting on a bench outside the General’s office, with Leia Organa standing above her and fussing with her hair. “Ouch,” Jess winces. “Too tight!” Leia gives her a look, still clutching a lock of Jess’s hair. “Sorry. Too tight, ma’am.”

“Hmph,” Leia says, going back to her intricate braiding.

“Hey,” Rey says to Jess, glancing between her and the General. “Got a minute?”

“Sure!” Jessika beams, patting the bench. “Have a seat. I got nowhere to be.”

Rey sits down hesitantly, fiddling with her thumbs again. “Well…” she starts, and then glances up at the General. “It’s, um… it’s sort of private.”

“I’m not even here,” Leia assures her, and starts humming loudly.

Rey leans closer to Jess. “I kind of told a lie,” she admits.

Jess smirks. “How so?”

“I, um…” she starts, and then blushes guiltily. “I accidentally might have told Snap that we were dating.”

“What?” Jess says, face scrunched up in confusion. “You told Snap that you guys were dating? Nooooo, wait. You mean… you told him that _we_ … oh.” She frowns, but only in a thoughtful way and not in a disappointed way. “Why, exactly?”

“He wanted to know who I was going to the after-party with,” she says all in a rush. “I panicked.”

“Understandable,” Jess says, nodding solemnly. “Understandable. Understandable.” She pauses to think while Leia tugs her hair behind her ear, still humming. “Well, I guess there’s only one solution,” Jess says, and winks. “You’d better not clash with my dress.”

At the ceremony, it’s Finn and Rey’s turn to beam with pride as Poe accepts his medal. Everyone stands and applauds for him, with Blue and Red Squadrons joining in. He just looks relieved he didn’t trip on his way to the stage.

The whole event seems to speed by for Rey; as proud as she is for Poe and Jess, she’s anxious about the after-party. As soon as the pilots have taken their last bows, all pretense of honor drops— it’s time for dancing, drinking, and dumb decisions.

Jess finds her in the throng and grabs her hand. “Come on,” she grins, her medal bouncing above the low-cut neck of her gown. “If everyone’s expecting us to be on a date, we’d better go and show them one.”

The party’s being held in a gymnasium, giving it an excessively high school feel. It can’t be helped. It was either the pilots’ training gym or the hangar. There aren’t too many options in a warzone.

There are already plenty of people dancing to the music when Jess and Rey get there— couples sliding over each other, groups dancing in circles, loners sticking to the walls. An excessively high school feel.

Rey feels her pulse jump when Jess reaches around her waist. “We don’t have to dance if you don’t want to,” Jess says, for once tonight sounding like her friend and not her fake-girlfriend.

Rey shakes off her worries. Jess’s hand on her waist surprised her, sure. But it didn’t feel wrong. “No, I want to dance,” she says, and reaches out to twine their fingers together. “Let’s dance.”

Jess is pretty good on the dancefloor, which Rey figures comes from athleticism and precision training. Rey, like Poe, is just happy she hasn’t tripped yet.

“Snap’s watching us,” Jess says, barely moving her lips. Rey follows her eyes and when Jess twirls her around, she catches a glimpse of Snap and some other pilots following their every move. “You want to give ’em something to talk about?”

“Why not?” Rey says, because she’s pretty sure what Jess has in mind.

She’s right, and Jessika’s mouth on hers feels like nothing else in the universe, warm and rough like home, new and exciting like unexplored frontiers, chapped lips and hot tongue and a giggle at the base of her throat because she knows the guys are watching.

“Wow,” Rey mumbles, because for a second there she forgot it was all a game. “Th-that was…”

“They’re goin’ wild,” Jess comments, looking over her shoulder at Snap and the guys.

“Mm,” Rey says, suddenly losing interest in the thrill of it all. Who cares if she’s single? Who cares if people think she’s dating Finn? It all seems trivial now, swinging from side to side in Jess Pava’s arms.

“You okay?” Jess says. Rey shrugs and doesn’t answer. “Look, I’m real sorry if I took that too far. I was just playing around, but if it made you uncomfortable I—”

“No, it’s fine, it’s fine,” Rey assures her. “It was… just playing around.”

Jess isn’t oblivious, but she also isn’t too sure of herself, so she waits a couple of songs to speak again, she waits and she dances with Rey, pulling her close and seeing how she reacts, running a thumb up and down her hand as they move.

“Can I confess something to you?” she says. The music’s died down and the dancefloor’s emptied a bit; they might as well be in their own little world. “I was planning to ask someone to this thing. For real.”

“Oh…” Rey starts, blushing. “Oh, I’m— I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”

“It’s you, dumbass,” Jess says, and immediately regrets it. She forgets, sometimes, that she can’t talk to everyone the way she talks to Poe and the gang. “Sorry, sorry. You’re not a dumbass.”

“Thank you, I didn’t think I was,” Rey says immediately, and Jessika laughs.

“If I can avoid insulting you again,” she says, cringing, “would you… maybe… wanna start our real date right now?”

Rey smiles. “We could just pick up where we left off,” she points out, and leans down to kiss Jess again.


End file.
